


the new beginning

by Jakowic



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakowic/pseuds/Jakowic
Summary: In a softer world, Eduardo Saverin grows up in White Plains, New York and becomes friends with the gangly awkward hopeless mess that is Mark Zuckerberg."You didn't know me when I was twelve.""I wish I did."(a series of very, very, very small drabbles)
Relationships: Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. nuclear winter

“Think about it,” Mark says with no preamble on Monday, sliding up to Eduardo as he’s getting his textbook from his locker. The hall isn’t crowded, but it’s not quiet either. Eduardo shoves his math textbook into his backpack and closes the door.

“No,” Eduardo responds automatically, busy trying not to drop all his things. Curiosity beats his resolve a second later and he looks up at Mark, half-crouched on the ground, trying to fit all his things inside his backpack. “Think about what?”

“If I had a time machine I’d go back and stop the nuclear weapons from being made.”

Eduardo gives him a weird look and stands up, swinging his things over his shoulder. “You do realize there would be a thousand consequences for that?”

Mark makes a dismissive gesture. “Whatever. If there’s an apocalypse of some sort – zombie, regular, giant sewer lizards, I’m not picky – there will be no reason to survive. Survivors are screwed either way, with no one to run and maintain nuclear plants we’d have a meltdown, so what would the point of surviving all the zombie stuff be? It’d suck, right, so if that never happened there’d be no worries!”

“Uh,” Eduardo says. “Nuclear weapons helped end world war two, I’m pretty sure. Also, are you, like, planning for apocalypse?”

Mark shrugs. “Sometimes, when I’m bored in class.”


	2. of rain and love, actually

“Wardo,” Mark whispers into the cold air of the living room.

It’s raining outside, it started the moment they stepped inside from their walk, and Mark had looked out the door at the torrential downpour and just murmured that they were lucky today, since neither of them had had the foresight to bring an umbrella. Eduardo had left him at the doorstep, shedding his coat to let his cold skin adjust to the incremental warmth of the house.

The wind isn’t bad yet, it’s not that kind of storm, but it’s been two hours, and the cold has seeped into every crevice of the house. Eduardo had curled up with Mark, intending to watch Love Actually until Mark got tired around the third replay – as usual – and switched to Kung Fu Hustle. Eduardo hadn’t meant to fall asleep halfway through, honest. But they’re entangled under an old flannel blanket and Mark is warmer than the furnace, so Eduardo lets his head loll onto Mark’s shoulder and closes his eyes, just for a moment.

Mark’s feet are ice cold where he presses them against Eduardo’s bare calf and, half-asleep, Eduardo smiles against his shoulder.

“You have crappy circulation,” Eduardo murmurs.

“Thank you,” Mark says gravely. Then, “I am not watching this on my own.”

“Mhm,” Eduardo agrees, because he’s right here, isn’t he? He tucks his cold nose against the pulse point in Mark’s neck.

Mark shivers and goes, “You’re a terrible best friend.”

Eduardo doesn’t hear the words. He’s already asleep, dreaming about Keira Knightley and Colin Firth. Exasperated, Mark curls an arm around Eduardo’s shoulders, deftly tugging him closer and watching the flicker of the t.v. as Liam Neeson stares morosely after his son. Mark’s seen this so many times at Eduardo’s insistence that watching the raindrops beat heavy at the glass window costs him nothing, mouthing the lines along with the characters even as he watches the wind whip the leaves straight off the trees.

Eduardo wakes sometime later, mouth dry. Mark had fallen asleep at an angle, Eduardo’s head had slid off his shoulder and onto his chest. The options menu is playing on a loop and the sky has darkened, going from light grey to almost black. Warm and comfortable, Eduardo shifts only a little in order to tug the blanket around him and Mark better, sleepily gazing at the cutscenes on the DVD options menu.

“We should get up,” Mark says, voice thick and slow with sleep, eyes still closed.

“Mm,” Eduardo agrees and makes no move to do that.


	3. sightless

“If you woke up invisible,” Eduardo starts, notebook balanced precariously on his knees, absently doodling caricatures of Mark with a cape fighting zombies instead of his history homework, like he promised.

Mark groans from his place on the bed, rolling over from his stomach onto his back, flinging his arm dramatically across his eyes. His math textbook and homework wobble on the pillow, abandoned. “No.”

“Come on,” Eduardo insists. “You make up apocalypse scenarios. You ask me Alice in Wonderland hypothetical questions. Answer this one. If you woke up invisible, what would you do?”

“Find you,” Mark says immediately. “And then I’d try to fix it.”

“What if I couldn’t hear you?” Eduardo tries. “Come on, dude, have an imagination.”

“God,” Mark says. “Okay. Fine. I’d start stealing. Shit like, I don't know. The first Batman comic. I'd pants random people on stage... I'd sneak into NASA, or the Pentagon, or something.”

“Hm,” Eduardo says at the back of his throat. It’s very Mark, that type of crime. He’s good with computers and his hands. He’d do that, just because he could. “I’d live in a Cinnabon,” he admits. “I’d just eat cinnamon rolls all day.”

Mark laughs, and it’s a dry sound, low and continuous. It’s the laugh Eduardo recognizes from the moments when Mark thinks he’s said something really funny. Eduardo, on automatic, ducks his head and grins at his notebook. After all these years he’s still not used to making Mark laugh and it pleases him every time it happens.

Suddenly Mark stops laughing. He sits up on the bed and Eduardo watches warily from the other side of the room, back pressed against the wall below the window.

“Would you look for me? At all? Would you bother?”

“Of course,” Eduardo says, because he cannot imagine a future without Mark, inasmuch he’s never really planned for any other college besides Harvard, never really planned on needing anyone but Mark. "But then I'd make you live in the Cinnabon."


End file.
